Dead Space 3

Co-Op Spotlight - Dead Space 3

Fighting fear with a buddy by your side

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We had heard rumors, but E3 2012 confirmed to us that Dead Space 3 would feature co-op play. Fans of the series balked. Co-Op fans cheered. Could both of these groups be satiated with the game that Visceral has developed?

Dead Space 3 continues the story of Isaac Clarke, and if you so choose, adds in the story of John Carver to the mix. Many wonder if you can create a horror game that also features co-op, we've seen a few games try it before, but were you scared? Dead Space 3 is out today on Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3, so lets take a look at how we got here.

Combat felt familiar to me, you'll still be targeting limbs of necromorphs and lopping those off as quick as possible. The weapons are definitely the new centerpiece of the game, with many pieces to pick up that can then be used to customize the weapon or build new weapons. I managed to build a sort of electric shotgun about midway through the demo. What stood out for me was just how detailed the new weapon looked and how slick the reload animation was on it.

We continued through the demo, stasising, stomping, and shooting our way through necromorphs and enemy soldiers. There's a pretty intuitive cover system that kind of pulls you to close cover, but doesn't stick you to it. As Nick said before, we didn't see if there was a revive mechanic, because every time he died he got squished or torn apart or 'sploded some how, so there wasn't much left to revive. I didn't die at all, because I hid behind Nick. The checkpoints were really forgiving. There didn't seem to be a penalty for dying, which doesn't help with the horror theme.

Dead Space 3 Interview Shows Why Co-Op Won out over Competitive - "We’re not doing competitive multiplayer this time – we’ve done that – but it was a big help in us understanding how to build an online game. With our co-op we wanted to make sure that whatever we did felt unique. We didn’t just want to have an AI bot follow the player around and then when you hit a button and someone starts controlling that guy. That wouldn’t feel like Dead Space. "